Ilum's Terrain

The wind bit through the parka that Mel had swathed herself in, the cold creeping up her legs in the suit and she grumbled that Tib would not have such a pretty face once they made it off Ilum. Her teeth chattered as she followed Tib down the ramp, her ice blue eyes taking in the scenery briefly before she ducked into the tunnel leading to the dome. She had never felt cold like that before and she shivered as she tottered on the heels. Tib and Taung went first, and she closely behind them, the rest following along behind her, their surveillance making sure to cover all sides. 

The offices were well appointed but they were not very lavish as they were first and foremost a mining operation. There was no real receptionist, just a couple of guys who were sitting at desks in the office. Mel stepped forward, clearing her throat to get their attention, as though the blasts of cold air wasn't notice enough that there were visitors.

"Excuse me, who's in charge?"

Tib set a credit chit down on the desk and slid it over to the bright eyed administrator. He nodded to Mel who produced her datapad, bringing up the recent order that had been mark suspicious by the research techs at Sienar. She smiled sweetly, her eyes as icy blue as the glacial wilderness outside but her demeanor warm and hospitable. 

"We just have a question, who ordered this load of crystals and where did you send them?"

She waited to see if he would understand the situation, if he was indeed the one who had been receiving the anonymous help. Mel hammed it up a little, a playful smile and a rather pouty expression. They were in a remote mining ops in the middle of nowhere, far away from anything closely resembling civilization. She was counting on the fact that he probably hadn't seen a woman in a very long time.

She smiled sweetly, leaning over to plant a kiss on his cheek as Tib dropped another credit chit on his desk. Mel winked at him, as she straightened up, tucking the datapad away again.

"Sorry sweetie, looks like I'm off to Garqi. Perhaps another time."

She turned and followed the rest of the team out, her persona in place until they were out the door again towards the ship. She nearly ran up the ramp in the heels to get out of the cold, kicking off the shoes once she was around the corner towards her room. Her teeth chattered from the exposure and she wanted a change of clothes as soon as she could get out of the suit. It did look nice though.

Taung found Gaeza in the cockpit, seemingly lost in thought. He noticed the book she held was on the Resol'nare, He had no idea what or how many questions were now running around in that mind that he would have to answer. He doubted he even had all the answers.

"Hey you. Watcha thinkin?"

He sat down in one of the rear crew seats as Sep lifted the ship off and headed for space.

When the silence had settled over the graves of the fallen, the planet of Ilum had wept. Though she knew not why these strange beings had come to make war upon her surface, they had left their mark in ways that in time could never truly heal. Her frigid splendor was torn asunder by the burning wrecks of slain warships, each bearing the smoldering pennants of their allegiance. Yet, even though these foreign creatures had marred her beauty, Ilum would not deny them the eternal rest they so eagerly sought. Thus, as the forgiving world, she had become in eons past, her frozen tears began to blanket the derelict vessels, smothering the fires that raged within their cloven hearts. With their spirits now drifting within the aether, she sought to reclaim what was taken from her by force. Her frozen tears had slowly swirled into a maelstrom of conflicting emotions, spreading the tranquil ash across the horizon and painting her frosted flesh with the remnants of the dead. She was no longer rife with sorrow over the loss of such life, instead, the barren world became one with the anguish that now permeated towards her very core.

That personification alone was enough to send a shiver of elation up the spine of the Shade. He had relished the sensation, knowing that there was little else in the galaxy that could give him such forbidden pleasures. Not even the Craven warmth of flesh, sought by many throughout the ages, could match this ethereal bliss. The Shadow breathed heavily, as his shrouded eyes peered through the oncoming flurry. This world had felt something for the dead, and now it sought to retake what it believed to now be hers. He couldn't allow that, not until the Shard was in his possession. So many pawns had been sacrificed in order to recover a fragment of what was stolen from him, losing it now to something a fickle as a wounded world? That was unacceptable. So, as the snow fell and the wind began to howl, the Shade trudged through the elements, brazenly defying the conscious will of Ilum in order to lay his hands upon his well-deserved prize.

For hours, the midnight clad being marched through the gathering snow. He did not feel the harsh kiss of winter's bite through his thick leathers, nor did his feet numb with every step. The wonders of technology had shielded him from Ilum's encroaching rage, and the absolute determination of triumph had pulsed molten blood throughout his shrouded frame. No Republic. No Empire. There was nothing but the elements to stop him now, and they had failed with every step the Shade took. Nevertheless, as much as the cold didn't bother the Shade, it had started to get on his nerves. Several times over the course of his journey, he had taken a wrong step and nearly lost his footing, thanks in part to the curvature of a butchered Stormtrooper's breastplate.

Clenching his teeth together, the Shadow breathes in a lungful of frigid air and slams his Force-imbued hands together before him. The echo of his thunderous clap pealed in the snow-choked silence, casting aside the swirling gale. Now free to move unhindered, it wasn't long before the ethereal creature came across a solitary soldier still clutching his pistol in one fist, whilst he bore the Shard in another. With his face surrounded by snow, it took the Shade a moment to realize that this was the man he had tasked with slaying his entire Legion. A sorrow flecked moment of admiration had passed through the shadowed figure as he kicked the Stormtrooper over with the edge of his boot. Ten thousand men, dead, either by his hands or another's. Although it was an impressive feat, it truthfully didn't matter who landed the killing blow, as their deaths had fueled the Shard in ways they couldn't understand.

Bending over to collect his prize, a wave of satisfaction flooded his senses. He was now one step further to becoming whole. Letting his lips curl into a savage grin, the Shade cast back his obsidian cowl and let his patrician features bear the brunt of winter's inhospitable bite.

"And so it begins," Belial had said, his breath salting the air with lingering trails of frost.

Out from the folds of his midnight black robes, the Dark Lord withdraws a small wooden box. Its details were lackluster and upon first glance, one would notice that there were no seams. However, as the Sith pulled it into the frigid embrace of Ilum's air, the container opened to reveal several intricate pieces of machinery and specially forged parts. These were made for a lightsaber, and were pilfered from the Jedi Temple on Coruscant in the waning moments of the Republic's final hour. It was fitting, the Dark Lord mused, how Arcanus' lightsaber would be made anew with parts stolen from his long abandoned quarter. Casting the myriad pieces of emitter technology and various other apparatus' into the air, Belial reached out with his immense power and arrested their fall. With his hands freed, by casting aside the box with little regard as to where it fell, He withdrew the trophy weapon and added it to the orbiting collection with but a thought.

Reaching into the depths of his own, vast consciousness, the Sith Lord pulled apart the weapon piece by piece. Electrum smothered metallic plates danced in the air alongside delicate circuitry. A trio of crystals, each taking on a varied hue of the spectrum, wistfully spun beside the newly acquired additions. It was then that he had shot his leather bound hands out into the air before him, and felt his mind wash over each and every single one of the parts arrayed in the air before him. He felt the power emanating from the shard, a maddening pulse that reeked of death and destruction. Belial paid the throbbing presence little mind, refusing to give into it's petulant desires to feed upon his soul. No, instead he would focus upon the weapon he had yet to forge. Breathing in another lungful of frozen air, the Sith began to chant. The word themselves were meaningless, but the power that they held beyond the veil of reality was his true intent.

Reaching into the depths of his own, sprawling consciousness, the Sith Lord pulled the aging trophy apart piece by piece. This electrum plated hilt had once belonged to a good man, and the Dark Lord could feel his lingering essence imprinted within the weapon itself. The blade was bonded to its former master and yearned to be held within his hands once more. However, that man - that Jedi - was nothing more than a pile of ash residing within the broken temple upon that forgotten world, forevermore to be mocked by the pages of history. Thus, the aetheric desires of the lightsaber were wholly denied and it began to scream in agony as telekinetic energies tore into it's very core. Silvered plates that comprised the casing were peeled back to reveal the delicate circuits beneath. Once skinned of the chromed flesh, the Epicanthix began to unravel the hilt's innards like a mortician would a corpse. The cries of ethereal torment and the fading memories of that Jedi's death ceased when the Diatium power cell was ripped from it's conductive housing.

The blade of the Sunstrider was now dead, and so too was the bond that they both had shared.

And so, with the seemingly mindless chanting rising in crescendo, the Dark Lord began molding the weapon in his own image. It was to be a physical metaphor of the truth that lay beyond the veil of reality, and of the bearer himself. With such an uncertain future laid out before this newly forged saber, who was to say how it would react once it was given life? Belial wanted to know, and thus begun the first steps of reforging this blade anew. He focused his thoughts upon the pilfered Shard of Alderaan and felt it's overwhelming darkness attempt to penetrate his protective mental barriers. Casting back its unwanted advances, the Sith forced the shard into the housing matrix and sealed the maddened whispers of the dead behind the metal's reactive surface. He didn't have long before the crystal's untapped potential seeped through into reality, as it had fed upon the souls of every soldier that had laid down their lives in this secluded conflict. His pace quickened, and the words spilled forth from his mouth faster and faster. With each and every syllable soundlessly slipping through his gaping maw, the blade slowly progressed towards completion.

Belial had lost all sense in regards to the passage of time. Seconds folded into minutes, which in turn blended into hours. Nothing outside himself and his work - especially at such a crucial stage - mattered. So, as the snows began to fall upon him once more, the Dark Lord separated himself from his physical being to ensure that no mistakes were made. Having risen up from his mortal frame, he became an observer within his own flesh, watching from a distance as his body worked on of its own volition. This was when he had first laid his ethereal eyes upon the weapon currently being forged within reality, and Belial had felt his breath catch in his throat. He was taken aback how different his trophy weapon had become. No longer was it the ostentatiously wrought symbol of a swordsman well versed in the arts of combat.

Now, it was the skeletal desire of a conqueror laid bare for all to see.

It was then that the final phase of the blade's construction had begun. Chromed flesh painted the entirety of the hilt, wrapping its sensitive innards in a protective shell which then was shrouded by textured rubber. Once the hilt was complete, the Dark Lord withdrew his aetheric soul back into his flesh and opened his eyes. What floated in the air before him, caused a serpentine grin to savagely curl his lips. This would be the weapon that would sweep the board clean, so they could start fresh. This was /his/ lightsaber. Snatching it from the air with an eager hand, the Sith held the saber below its three-pronged emitter. An interesting choice, he mused. As his eyes devoured the details of the new design, Belial had fought against the overbearing urge to ignite the weapon and see what he had wrought. It was not yet time. There was still more that had to be done. This was nothing more than a tool, and with what was to come, it would become more; it would become a part of him as he would become one with it.

"This Crystal, is the Soul of my Blade. This Blade is an extension of my Body. This Body is the vessel for my Soul. This Soul is the Power of the Sith. Through the Force, the Crystal, the Blade, and the Sith..."

With the Oath made, the Dark Lord ignited his newly constructed saber by depressing the activation stud. What happened next, had torn the silence gripping the debris strewn valley asunder with its deafening roar. As the power cell had fed into the heart of the blade, the Shard of Alderaan screamed in righteous indignation. Millions of voices cried out in terror as the lightsaber thrummed to life, numbing the Dark Lord's senses with their eternal aetheric torment. The snow about the titanic figure was bathed in the accented shadow of violet that seemed to drink in the light emanating from the System's solitary star - Asar.

"I am made whole."

With the pact now sealed, Ilum's spirit had risen from her tranquil slumber in order to snuff out the horror that had been wrought upon her very flesh. Weather, uncharacteristic of anything ever recorded before, began to swirl about the ignited blade - seeking to smother the flames before they could spread. However, much to her personified chagrin, the unstable and serrated beam vanished as the Dark Lord extinguished the connection between the source of its power and the focusing crystals themselves. Bereft of a target for her unbridled rage, the storms began to rage wildly, leaving the Sith stranded amidst the Dead.

Yet, as his gaze turned skyward, Belial felt that such a fate would not be his to share alone for much longer.

The rising tempest of Ilum's personified rage bracketed the Dark Lord with torrential winds, shrouding him in the swirling mist of snow and ice. She sought to consume the Sith with her frigid flesh, drowning him with thick curtains of her frozen tears. For what seemed like an age, this battle of opposing wills had unfolded. Time no longer held any meaning for Belial, as seconds blended into hours, which in turn phased into weeks. Thus, as he had lifted his head towards the lightning smote skies, the dawning of a new era had come to pass. It was then that he had felt the intrusion of a new player on this game board, one that had sent ambitious souls to this world to record and steal its secrets. There was nothing that could've been done to save them from their fate. They had foolishly ventured into a war waged by a man and the planet underneath, only to find themselves slain in the process. Belial cracked a smile then, as their agonised cries rippled beyond the veil. With the globe of Ilum distracted by these pawns, the Dark Lord had taken this fleeting moment for himself and struck down the aetheric construct that the frozen orb had created. The farce was over, and the Sith Lord was finally free from a trap of his making. Ilum was once again, a dead world. She held no sensation of life, nor did she have the abilities to project her vengeance into the material realm.

Yet, the Storm did not abate. It still raged on as the wreckage of the first shuttle had joined with that of the Armada, submerged beneath a thick blanket of snow, and continued thereafter as yet another transport had braved the descent to the surface. Several more thunderous impacts resonated throughout the snow, foretelling of an inquisitive force scouring through the fields of the dead for answers. Thus had his solace soured, to the sounds of iron-shod boots. In the ensuing darkness of his making, the Sith watched these vile creatures despoil his secluded sanctuary with reverberating waves of hubris trailing in their wake. He did not see them, as mortals would. Instead, the Dark Lord had seen them as candles, flickering in the shadow swept wind. They burned incandescent, as the storm had claimed them, leaving only one to stand brighter than them all. The Force had whispered of this Flambeau, hailing him as a leader of men - whose every word sends thousands to their death in pursuit of a vainglorious dream. How telling those rumours were. He was yet another man, at the head of the remnants of Palpatine's New Order, seeking to make a name for himself. His desires pooled into the veil, unknowingly blackening its pliable surface with ever rippling waves. It was admirable, wanting to bring Order out of the Chaos and crushing those that would seek to resist his coming. However, with the Throne of Balance still holding onto the threads of destiny, and the equilibrium intact, his notion of an ideal Galaxy will meet an opposing force that he may one day consider his equal.

Nevertheless, he had come here for a reason. Not because of the dead man at his feet, but for the prize that lay within the caves of crystal. Gideon was a man long considered dead, especially after the Second Imperium had been scattered to the winds and denying the Dark Lord of his coveted prize. It would no doubt be a shock to the man that now wandered through the gushing blizzard, that not only was the Stormtrooper alive - but that he was now and forevermore, dead. From his wretched corpse, tendrils of smoke began to claw their way out of his every orifice, eagerly grasping for an unearned freedom denied to them by the powers that bound them all to their respective sides of the veil. Coiling together into something almost wraith-like the tendrils warped together to form the image of a human hand, a likeness that now buried itself in the freshly fallen snow. Many eye-aching moments had past as the demon clawed its way free of the Colonel's cadaver, giving birth to yet another Shade in the realm of reality, the darkened simulacrum of the Stormtrooper skulked on the edges of Belial's sight - seeking not to draw the gaze of his killer and his re-maker.

"Draw forth the Commander, I feel the touch of Destiny upon him."

The demon of billowing smoke had nodded; its features now shrouded in the contrails of its existence. Without a word, the creature slithered through the howling winds. In an instant, the aetheric creature had fallen upon its prey, only to find itself bereft of fangs. Oh, how the creature hungered for the sweetest meat of men caught in their hubris. How delicious it would be to devour his crude flesh clad form, and then torment his flickering luminescence within for eternity. There was no finer wine on the tongue that such a thought and the Smoke Demon had found himself eagerly wishing to break his Master's last command. Why draw forth the Usurper, when they could end him now? With one blow, unseen to the eyes of mortals, the Supreme Commander's thread would be severed. Although he had wished for such an outcome to pass, it knew what would happen mere heartbeats after. His very essence would be snuffed from reality, never to return beyond the veil - and truly perish as mortals do. With such a fate looming over his head, the creature swims through the snow-choked air like as incorporeal as the wind's thrashing tide.

It was there, in the space surrounding the Imperial, that the Demon began to whisper - leading him one step closer towards madness and the Dark Lord thereafter. He gripped his head as the whispers grew louder, hoping in vain that the hushed murmurs would cease. And they did, only for the Commander to slowly open his eyes and bear witness to the Darkness made manifest.

Still shrouded by his oil blackened leathers and hewn midnight cloak, Belial started out through the shadows of his cowl and took the measure of the man that stood his opposite. A mewling wretch. A crowned and conquering child. An insignificant pawn that somehow would find himself useful provided he was given the right push. When the Dark God had spoken, his voice came from everywhere - and nowhere. It was if the planet itself had spoken with his words, amplifying them at their master's behest.

"Where a Sovereign crown once lay," Every word was laden in prophecy. A riddle that only the worthy would indeed solve. "Ashes are all that remain. Those seething embers shall become the cradle of your future."

When the rhetoric had been given, the Dark Lord lifted the broken corpse of Gideon Raith from the surface of Ilum and tossed him before the Imperial's feet.

"With the fate of Gideon and his Legion sealed, the Second Imperium falls. None, save those within your own ranks, shall stand between you and what you seek. Your dream of Order will stand among the First to reclaim what had been lost, yet, as you and those that follow you set out into the stars on this foolish crusade know that not everything is what it seems. Never trust your eyes, for they will betray you."